CREAMY PSYCHOLOGY - YVONNE TODD

Twelve years ago, a young Auckland photographer, Yvonne Todd, became the surprise winner of the first Walters Award. Judge Harald Szeemann confessed that Todd's was 'the work that irritated me the most'.

Todd's work has a complex relationship with feminism, and she is best known for her portraits of women, mostly invented female 'characters', sometimes incorporating herself into their world, being one of her own favourite models. These portraits are typically contrived, and are nostalgically styled and art directed, using costumes, wigs, makeup, and false teeth. For her costumes, Todd scours the Internet to purchase vintage designer gowns, sometimes owned by celebrities whose lives have become synonymous with tragedy, such as Whitney Houston. Many of Todd's characters seem to suffer from some soap-operatic malaise, explicit or implicit. They include cosmeticians, cripples, modest Christians, anorexics, cult members, showgirls and tragic heiresses. 

- 260pp, hardcover

- ISBN: 9780864739773